Belper Art Trail 2011: April 2011

Thursday, 21 April 2011

waiting...

i keep wanting to do something on this project.

the main thought is getting details and information from those participating artists and shops and getting more information onto the webpage. being realistic and honest, as we all approach the long weekend of easter and the large public wedding, i can't help feeling i should leave all what i want to do until we get into may.

Saturday, 16 April 2011

evolution of thinking about setting up the trail

when chris said to me that she wanted to set up the trail, i was instantly behind her as it was a great opportunity to so something with an art centric endeavour in belper.

we've been thinking about it and considering it since last september/october. it was before christmas that we decided to attempt 10 artists and 10 shops, as a pilot tester project. on the face of it, this is straight forward, we ask 10 shop keepers to take part and 10 artists to participate. with chris and i wanting to display, that only leaves 8 to find.

lately in my personal practice, i have been struggling to get responses from people with whom i'm attempting new things with. not across the board, just a few isolated instances. what i am experiencing is affecting my well being and clarity of thinking.

in the last few days, i've realised that the internal way i was thinking about putting the art trail together was affecting my well being also. i was thinking about it in terms of an uphill struggle, to realise the intentions. i think the source of the uphill notion is born from an exposure to all the public sector and art sector cuts and redundancy and stuff that is very pull downy for want of any other better way of saying it.

so to turn this around in myself, i need to think about the art trail in a different way. here's the foundations of the art trail:

chris and myself's intention is to mount a trail of art work in belper with the food festival as a pivot of the exhibition. the trail to be spread from the a6 to the market square. this is the first time we've done this in belper, so we're not asking for any funding, as we must first prove what we can do. we have the support and backing of a really supportive and helpful food festival committee. we will put on a display of work in belper

here's my evolution of thinking:

between chris and myself we can put work in as many shops as we can get to our target of 10. by talking to the people who run the shops we can achieve the intention of 10. by talking to members of the artistic community in belper we can replace our work for that made by others. with the help of 8 members of the artistic community in belper we can achieve our 10 in 10 goal. this shift in my thinking helps me to enjoy being part of the art trail.

to my knowledge between chris and i we have spoken so far to 4 members of the artistic community. we have more on our list to talk to too.

i think there is a little bit of a panic in me driven by the unknown, for this is the first time in belper that we have attempted this. i can work towards reducing the panic by continuing to talk and answer questions and be realistic about this, the first year of the trail. we need to do it once to establish a real foundation, to then build on it in subsequent years.

Saturday, 9 April 2011

Belper Art Trail 2011 | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

Lovely Sunny Derbyshire

I'm very excited about having this blog to write in, I will be recording my thoughts and the experience of setting something up in the town I live in.

I love Belper, it's full of creative, interested and genuine people. There are a lot of artists based here, so it feels good to have an opportunity to show off all we do and maybe an excuse to go to one of the excellent pubs to discuss the whole thing.

So far we have some interesting premises to work with, the offer for an installation, six windows in the Black Swann on the Market Place to consider and a spiritual shop on the A6, so a really good mixture of venues to suit our different artforms.

Belper Art Trail 2011